[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Are throwaway accounts becoming a problem fo...
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Ask HN: Are throwaway accounts becoming a problem for HN?
Recently I've noticed a lot of totally new accounts posting
comments on topics (Mainly Crypto related!)... all commenting in
the same direction. Are these throwaway (Possibly bot) accounts
now becoming a problem - effecting ranking and the conversation?
Author : edf13
Score : 22 points
Date : 2022-11-04 17:10 UTC (5 hours ago)
| pvaldes wrote:
| Only if "who said what in internet" is important to you. I you
| focus in the ideas and content instead than in the envelope this
| accounts can be still valuable
| VancouverMan wrote:
| Same here.
|
| I don't care what name is associated with a given comment.
|
| It's the content of the comment that matters to me.
|
| Many of the most insightful and informative comments I've ever
| seen have come from "throwaway" accounts.
|
| Many of the most useless comments I've ever seen have come from
| prominent, real-name accounts.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| People making many throwaway accounts end up rate-limiting
| themselves in certain regards. Make a new account and comment
| with a link as one of your first few messages? Probably going to
| get auto-killed (someone can vouch for it, I usually do) because
| it looks like a typical spam message. Similarly, young accounts
| posting too many submissions end up getting their submissions
| auto-killed for the same reason (these can also be vouched for,
| but people are less likely to notice it to do the vouching).
|
| If it's how they want to interact with the site, though, let
| them. It doesn't hurt anything, just adds more green (and
| sometimes grey) to the page.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| I see plenty of spam and garbage on HN (examples: the same
| articles being posted over and over, random crypto articles with
| 4 upvotes, "this" or "I agree, fuck X!" bandwagon comments).
|
| But I still think the lower volume vs. larger social medias, and
| the upvote/downvote system, is good so that these spam and
| throwaways don't take up too much of my attention vs. the
| actually good content.
| didgetmaster wrote:
| I agree. The signal/noise ratio on HN is much better than many
| other sites.
| blindriver wrote:
| What's your evidence that there are bots on here? There's nothing
| worse than people just throwing out conspiracy theories with
| nothing to back them.
|
| And HN has a lot of internal protection against vote rigging,
| etc.
| fragmede wrote:
| Of course there are bots here. It's a simple fact of running
| such a popular Internet site in the yard 2022, especially one
| with such a highly technical audience. What they do, and how
| much they post, if at all, is another question, but thinking
| there aren't bots, or at least computer aided readers and
| posting if you want to call it that here just seems naive.
| mdaEyebot wrote:
| Look, if you set up a permanent account on a pseudonymous forum,
| you are essentially linking it to your real identity.
|
| Your writing voice, anecdotes from your life, what topics you
| understand and are interested in, it all comes together with
| enough time.
|
| Not everybody wants to be bothered with all of that. Doesn't mean
| they're bots. It's worrying how often people assume that
| disagreement is necessarily inauthentic.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Doesn 't mean they're bots._
|
| I mean, that's what an account with the word "bot" in it
| created 4 days ago _would_ say.
| adamckay wrote:
| > It's worrying how often people assume that disagreement is
| necessarily inauthentic
|
| I don't think the OP is assuming that, but it's not
| unreasonable to consider that lots of brand new accounts
| created to comment on cryptocurrency may not be authentic -
| primarily because they may have a vested interest to shill / be
| astroturfing.
| julianlam wrote:
| No, account reliability tends to correlate with account age,
| but there's obviously no causation here.
|
| However, it is a signal, and a fairly strong one, for
| authenticity.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| And this mistaken idea is why people are able to buy and sell
| accounts for astroturfing.
| VancouverMan wrote:
| To me, "authenticity" is somebody being able to express what
| they truly want to say, without having to worry too much
| about negative repercussions.
|
| Somebody trying to build or maintain a certain reputation or
| a particular public image, for example, seems like a lack of
| authenticity to me.
| throwaway23346 wrote:
| I agree with you on this - I love being able to speak my
| mind without too much thought into building social
| credibility by having a comprehensive history of posts.
| It's an unnecessary barrier to attempt to require
| "credibility" to be able to contribute, most people here
| are in tech, and the quality of discussion is honestly
| pretty high compared to MANY other sites.
|
| Implementing any barriers towards communication will
| incentivize people to be agreeable or not speak their full
| mind, if they have to reach a certain karma threshold or
| tie it to an easily traceable identity.
|
| Moderation is pretty good here from my experience, and it's
| an excellent place to get information from others without
| worrying about the identity of whom you are engaging with.
| Honestly a breath of fresh air keeping it more old school
| than modern social media platforms.
| muzani wrote:
| From the guidelines:
|
| "Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but
| please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community--
| users should have an identity that others can relate to."
|
| Sure, everyone would rather be anonymous given the chance, but
| it's not what this site was meant to be.
| mikewarot wrote:
| If I were still employed, I'd be a lot more careful about what
| I say here. I think in a generation or so, we'll either all use
| pseudonyms for everything, or the culture will be forced to be
| far more forgiving of our sins.
|
| I like the theory that I heard on Wranglerstar a few days ago,
| that when Jesus gave his lecture about not casting stones... he
| wrote out the sins of those present in the sand, so that each
| person could see that he knew, and then he could cast that
| knowledge away.
|
| In the future, everyone will see your foibles, and accept them.
|
| OR
|
| An Algorithm will use them to divide society by using hypocrisy
| as a wedge.
| Bhurn00985 wrote:
| This. I tend to create a new account every time I reach
| somewhere around 100 upvotes.
|
| A secondary reason is that it helps to protect me from falling
| into the trap of caring about imaginary internet points.
| 2devnull wrote:
| The house always wins-- true for casinos and distributors of
| imaginary internet points.
| eimrine wrote:
| I have not observed what you describe. But what I can tell about
| crypto topics (not only on HN) is that a quality of discussion
| use to be low while the amount of such discussion is very high.
| That remains me one of the most famous mathematical meme about
| Fermat's Great Theorem. There were a lot of people with no math
| education who use to desire to prove the theorem. And there are
| too much of people who use to tell something about crypto while
| have no ability to tell anything wise. What about throwaway
| accounts, I am sure this is not a problem at all. Just set your
| "showdead" option for yes and you will see how much of job is
| doing here invisibly.
| throwaway23346 wrote:
| I like being able to comment without coming up with a traceable
| handle, I really don't think it is a problem. And yes, I also
| participate time to time in crypto related threads, but am
| certainly not a bot. Pseudoanonymity is valuable, and there's
| naturally a good overlap with individuals interested in crypto as
| many are privacy advocates. I really, strongly believe that it is
| not a problem to be able to easily post here without things like
| a degree of MFA. It allows for easier communication
| yellowapple wrote:
| Everyone on Hacker News is a bot.
|
| Even you.
|
| Even me.
| ravenstine wrote:
| HN could very well be the first victim of the "dead internet"
| theory. After all, the developers who write the bots probably
| hang out here and use this place as a benchmark for whether
| their bot can pass for real. HN may be entirely bots now, for
| all we know. ;)
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| It's probably why many users choose to use their real names.
|
| (Or at least that's why I intentionally chose to use my real
| name, linked to my blog, etc., so that my comments would be
| easier to take seriously.)
|
| Accounts with pseudonyms have a higher threshold to clear.
| intelVISA wrote:
| Nice try, GPT-3.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Hilarious!
| ipnon wrote:
| Over time one learns to take the comments of green accounts with
| a certain grain of salt without discarding their opinion
| entirely. Wrongthink is a serious offense these days. Throwaways
| effectively work around this injunction.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I disagree, I frequently see them used to express viewpoints that
| may cause people an issue at work. It's nice that Hacker News is
| a place where people can do that and still spark or engage with
| conversation on topics where they can't use their real name for
| whatever reason.
|
| Especially given recent news that gives some people pause about
| using Twitter (too early to tell if there will be a real exodus
| or need for exodus from the platform). It's nice to have techy
| people to chat with on HN.
| CobaltFire wrote:
| I've noticed the same thing and been more and more feeling like
| commenting this same thing.
|
| Not just on crypto, but on other topics that people don't want to
| be associated with their actual opinions (GutHub Copilot) this
| seems to be far to common.
|
| I really think these accounts poison the well on the more
| contentious topics.
| [deleted]
| exolymph wrote:
| No? Just downvote bad comments.
| anarticle wrote:
| Wouldn't flagging/moderation that we have do work on this? Praise
| to mods, especially dang.
|
| I would guess that the reason most of us are here is the higher
| than normal signal to noise ratio.
|
| HN has a long way to go SNR wise before I think we reach bot
| problems. This is one of my couple accounts on HN, decoupled from
| my internet presence. Seems fine to me, for now.
| pieter_mj wrote:
| How about letting new accounts be lurkers for a few days, let's
| say 5 to 10 days?
| diob wrote:
| It would be interesting to have a community where anonymous
| comments are separated from those with a name (or reputation /
| age, given you could still make throwaway accounts).
| mikkergp wrote:
| My understanding would be throwaways should be limited to high
| value, usually one-time posts or comments specifically meant to
| anonymize a persons affiliation with a group in response to an
| event. Not just like an 'alt'. Are there other high value or in
| the spirit of HN uses?
| [deleted]
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| My primary account on here is labeled throwaway even though I've
| been active for about four years. I just decided to label it
| "throwaway" to make it very clear that I have no concern
| whatsoever with reputation. In that respect it's a means of being
| able to express an opinion without the subsequent stress over
| perceived external perceptions.
| jalexanderh wrote:
| Definitely
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(page generated 2022-11-04 23:03 UTC)